Methods of fabrication of ceramic wafers
AssigneeRaytheon Company
InventorsHoward R. Beratan, Tony A. Owens, Ida M. Gist
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Ceramic powder (50) may be disposed within a flexible mold (30 and 130) to form a dense ceramic wafer (60) by hydrostatic pressing. The ceramic powder (50) may include various types of pyroelectric material or bolometric material. One or more substrates (20 and 24) may be disposed within the flexible mold (30 and 130) to form the desired dense ceramic wafer (60). The flexible mold (30 and 130) may be placed in one or more vacuum sealed bags (38) prior to hydrostatic pressing. Also, a vibration table (70) may be used to minimize any void spaces in the ceramic powder (50) prior to hydrostatic pressing.
Claims13
A method of forming a flat ceramic wafer for use in fabricating a thermal detector, comprising the steps of:
- providing a flexible mold having a die cavity disposed therein;
- placing a rigid first substrate in the die cavity, the first substrate having a configuration corresponding with the interior of the die cavity and a flat face;
- placing a ceramic powder on the first substrate's flat face within the die cavity;
- placing the flexible mold along with the ceramic powder and first substrate in a flexible container and vacuum sealing the flexible container to remove air from the ceramic powder and the die cavity;
- and
- hydrostatically pressing the ceramic powder and first substrate within the die cavity to form the flat ceramic wafer.
A method for forming a flat, dense ceramic wafer from pyroelectric material for use in fabricating a hybrid thermal detector comprising the steps of:
- providing a flexible mold having a die cavity disposed therein;
- placing a first rigid substrate in the die cavity, the first substrate having configuration corresponding with the interior of the die cavity and a flat face;
- placing a ceramic powder formed from the pyroelectric material on the first substrate within the die cavity;
- placing a second rigid substrate having a flat face in the die cavity with the ceramic powder disposed between the first substrate's flat face and the second substrate's flat face;
- placing a first barrier layer between the first substrate and the ceramic powder;
- placing a second barrier layer between the second substrate and the ceramic powder;
- wherein the second barrier layer and the second rigid substrate are supported only by the ceramic powder;
- placing the mold along with the ceramic powder, the first substrate and the second substrate in a flexible vacuum sealed bag to remove air from the ceramic powder disposed in the die cavity;
- and
- hydrostatically pressing the ceramic powder the first substrate and the second substrate within the die cavity to form the ceramic wafer.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.